Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue; Atlus is back in action with their latest release, Catherine, a puzzler at heart with the social/dating-sim flair one might expect from the team behind the Persona series. As a whole, Catherine is truly unlike anything we've seen before, but does this originality beget quality?

Short answer: yes, yes it does. Catherine is one of the most intriguing titles I've played in quite some time, and it more than lives up to the hype. The puzzle mechanics strike the elusive balance between simplicity and depth, the characters and narrative are riveting to say the least, and the social-sim aspects are deep. There are numerous NPC's you can talk to, each with their own distinct personalities and character arcs. Unlike other games where you feel like taping down the "x" button to skip over bland conversation, Catherine is populated with characters who are actually interesting and worth talking to. This is on top of the game's main narrative starring Vincent, Katherine, and Catherine, a story with 7-8 different endings in and of itself.

If you haven't been keeping up with previews, the plot revolves around Vincent and his relationship with Katherine, his girlfriend of five years. It starts with a conversation between the two over coffee with Katherine dropping subtle hints that she wants to settle down. Vincent, however, isn't on the same page. He's fine with staying unattached and dreads moving too quickly in this relationship, to Katherine's apparent dismay. That night, Vincent meets Catherine (clever, I know), a buxom blonde with a knack for saying all the right things to a man who's afraid of commitment. The next thing he knows, Vincent finds himself waking up next to a naked Catherine clenching his arm. The rest of the story revolves around how Vincent decides to handle this affair.

Things heat up quickly in Catherine.

Fans of the Persona games will be glad to hear the story measures up to the team's past efforts, marrying aspects of both Japanese and Western narrative traditions to make one of the best game stories I've seen recent years. It's quirky, it's funny, it's somber, it's thrilling, but best of all, it's coherent. All too often, Japanese games replace sensibility with spectacle, and cohesion with grandiosity. Catherine, thankfully, manages to provide both: it's got the intelligibility of a Western title while still retaining the hallmark flamboyancy of Japanese games. If you're looking for a wild ride that actually makes sense when it's all said and done, look no further.

While the plot itself is more than solid, its presentation can be a tad underwhelming. The game relies heavily on convention when it comes to storytelling, using cutscenes and non-interactive conversations extensively throughout. More often than not, I didn't mind being taken out of control of Vincent; he's an interesting and amiable enough character that letting him do his thing was enjoyable in its own right. However, there were a few moments when I would have acted very differently than he did, and I yearned for the ability to intervene. In a game with dialogue trees and multiple endings, it's jarring when the main character is given a choice and the player isn't allowed to make it. While this issue is by no means game-breaking, it would have been nice seeing more opportunities for the player to influence the plot, if only inconsequentially.

But the story is really only half of the experience. Each night, Vincent has a recurring nightmare where is forced to undergo trails of will and perseverance by climbing a tower made of blocks, a tower that is slowly crumbling beneath him. Additionally, while awake, Vincent can also play games of Rapunzel, an actual arcade booth in the local tavern with very similar mechanics to those of the nightmare trials. At first glance, it all seems simple enough: pull a block out here, climb over there, etc. But the mechanics are surprisingly deep, and what at first was child's play soon becomes man's lament. This game gets tough, and I mean tough. I barely survived the Normal difficulty level, and I can safely say there's no shame in playing this one on Easy. As an Atlus game, one should expect some crushing difficulty, but in Catherine, it sometimes bordered on the absurd.

That isn't to say it isn't fun, though. The difficulty of the puzzles is part of what makes this game so rewarding. Rapidly ascending the final blocks of a stage never looses its thrill, and on occasion, I would even throw my fist up in triumph along with Vincent after conquering the tower that was now below him. But sometimes that fist was aimed at my television in rage rather than skyward in elation; there are a few unexpected difficulty spikes midway through the game. They were much harder than even the final stages, and I will gladly admit to using walkthroughs in completing them. To put it in perspective, as someone who's beaten the entirety of Echochrome, there were times in Catherine when even I was ascending the tower while still not quite sure knowing how. Luckily, these difficulty spikes are few and far between, but it's unfortunate that they even exist in the first place.

Aesthetically, Catherine looks great. In true Persona fashion, the juxtaposition of anime and rendered cutscenes is back and looking better than ever. In fact, the latter looks quite good, perhaps even overshadowing the former. Character models are crisp, emotive, and full of personality, while environments set the tone of the game beautifully. The overall art style is a perfect fit for the narrative, and the extensive use of allegory and symbolism works on multiple levels, being both poignant and tongue-in-cheek simultaneously.

Shoji Meguro is again in charge of the game's soundtrack, and like everything else, he fails to disappoint. His classical arrangements during the tower sequences work wonderfully with the themes of Catherine, pulling works all the way from Bach to Bizet and infusing them with the style and energy one might expect from a game soundtrack. It's a shame those were all that wound up on the official sound disc, though, as the original works found outside the nightmare stages are classic Meguro. The voice acting is top-notch, so if you're worried about the game not having a Japanese audio track, you shouldn't be. Also, fans of the Persona series should have no trouble spotting some returning voice actors throughout the game.

With its arcade-style puzzles as something old, its themes and narrative as something new, its presentation as something borrowed, and a level of difficulty that will give you the blues, Catherine is a great step forward into the current gen by the Persona team. While by no means perfect, it's definitely an experience I would encourage everyone to try, even on Easy, and I personally can't wait to see what's in store for the inevitable Persona 5.

Overall, I would give Catherine a 4.5/5*.

* Note: a 10-point system out of 5 is a great way to avoid the grade school connotation of any score below a 6.0/10 or 60/100 being a "failing" grade.

Of course you do. The Dead Island trailer that shook the world, this 4 minute video sent ripples throughout the gaming community, sparking controversy, fostering speculation, and providing hope. Finally, for all the die-hard fans of the undead, there seemed to be a game on the horizon which wouldn’t sugarcoat the experience of Z-Day. From the trailer alone, Dead Island was looking to be both one of the most serious portrayals of a zombie outbreak we’ve ever seen in games, and one of the most personally-affecting games of any genre. Seeing this family become overrun by zombies one by one, with each member witnessing in horror the infection and devouring of their beloveds, was disturbing to say the least. If Techland was willing to be that brutal, both physically and emotionally, in a trailer, it was hard to imagine what they had in store for the game itself.

Thankfully, Techland quickly dispelled any of our speculations and concerns suggesting that the game would be serious, innovative, or emotionally affecting. A short while after the trailer was released, the first gameplay details surfaced. Oh, it’s going to be a sandbox game? Great! First person? That must mean it’s immersive! Customizable weapons? Alright, I guess that’s something you can do in a zombie apocalypse. Vehicle combat? Wait, I thought this was on an island. Skill trees? Experience points? Zombie “classes”? Sam f*cking B?

Techland has assured us that you won’t be playing as any of the family members in the trailer, so don’t worry about getting emotionally attached to the child, or to the wife, or to the husband. All those feelings may get in the way of what really matter: points. There will also be no children in the game, contrary to what the trailer may have you believe. So if you were looking forward to rescuing some defenseless children from zombie hordes in (on?) Dead Island, well too bad. It’s for your sense of fun’s sake that you can’t, so blame it, not Techland. It isn’t their fault that video games are only supposed to be fun. Plus it might have seemed a little insensitive giving players points for shooting undead children, so apparently all the children who would have been zombified were sent on a vacation from their actual vacation which their mommies and daddies secretly knew was going to be a zombie-infested nightmare. If this isn’t making sense to you, don’t worry, you’re not alone.

When I first saw the Dead Island trailer, my immediate reaction was that of excitement. After another viewing, it was of intrigue and speculation. My third time through was when the burnout started. It slowly dawned on me that such a game, as promised by the trailer, had little to no chance of being made. The dark, gritty, emotional zombie game would alienate a sizable portion of the already reduced constituency of gamers who like zombie games. Some players think that a good zombie game is something like CoD:BlOps or Left 4 Dead, simply for the sheer mindless fun of beheading zombie after countess zombie via shotgun or katana. Others, those who are more likely to call themselves “hardcore” zombie fans, prefer a more survival horror approach to their zombie games, reveling in the tension of always having one less bullet than you need in games like the original Resident Evils. It’s this latter group who would swarm to the game Techland was promising in the trailer, but this almost masochistic breed of gamers is a rare one indeed (for reasons I won’t get into now in the interest of relevancy). And unfortunately, most companies aren’t willing to risk catering to such niche markets, especially not if they’re nested within a group which is already on the small side of things.

But fear not, fellow zedheads: I didn’t completely lose faith. I saw, shining brightly just beyond the horizon, a game which could very well be considered the most artistic and affecting zombie game ever yet made. What game is this, you might ask, and why wasn’t it flown down from the heavens, resting atop a bed of clouds, accompanied by the holy songs of cherubim? Well, I’ll tell you.

The bastion of zombie greatness I’m referring to is the one, the only: Dead Rising 2. Now before you get all uppity (though I’m sure you will anyway), let me explain myself. For starters, I’ll gladly admit that the Dead Rising series has its faults: poor shooting mechanics, the overall cheesiness (chainsaw-motorcycles, anyone?), ridiculous boss fights, etc. Dead Rising and Dead Rising 2 are by no means perfect games. And yes, I understand that they’re full of everything I previously bashed Dead Island for having, from experience points to zombie classes, weapon-crafting to vehicle combat. But while I may find some aspects of the Dead Rising series to be less than satisfactory, I feel that as a whole, they’re moving in the right direction for zombie games. Not in their gameplay mechanics, not in their characters or narratives, but in their structure and their sense of agency.

When I first played the original Dead Rising, it was alongside a friend at my his house and, like many players, we simply ignored the missions. Killing zombies was far too much fun to be bothered by a plot, especially a lackluster one at that. However, when I bought a copy of DR2 for myself, I actually gave the missions a shot. I mean, if I’m going to pay 60 bucks, I might as well check out the work put into the story and whatnot by the developer. At first, I wasn’t sure whether or not I’d be able to cope with the game’s infamous timed mission structure; it was a big reason why I didn’t even bother with the story in the first game, and I usually don’t do well with countdowns in games. But after a while, I got the hang of it. Not only that, I started to really appreciate the timed structure, contrary to my previous annoyance with it. It provided some truly revelatory moments for me during my playthrough, forcing me to make surprisingly difficult decisions against the clock. Do I have time to save this person? Two missions are about to expire, who do I save? Do I really want to risk dying at the hands of this boss just to save someone?

Here’s a shining example of one such moment: I had some downtime in between two actual story missions, so I decided to go rescue some schmuck stuck on top of a kiosk in the food court (or something like that). I was just about to enter the mall proper when all of a sudden I get a message for a mission titled Code Blue. Apparently, somewhere in the mall there was a paramedic who would be willing to part with a dosage of Zombrex if he was saved. As soon as I read that, almost without thinking, I switched my waypoint and started heading towards the paramedic, completely abandoning the man in the food court. I made the decision to help the man who could help me. Screw the other guy, at least for the moment. At that point, I was willing to abandon the man in the food court, leaving him to be food for the horde, all because I didn’t stand to gain as much from his rescue as I did the paramedic’s. When I caught myself doing this, finally realizing the gravity of the decision I had just made, I actually had to pause the game and think to myself, “what does this say about me?”

This sense of agency is all but absent in virtually every other zombie game series, except for (in a sense) maybe the Left 4 Dead games. Take Resident Evil for example: while most titles in the series are by no means on rails, the decisions the player can make have little to no consequence in the games’ narratives. All of the player’s actions are focused solely on personal survival and the continuation of the plot. While these decisions often have to be made in the heat of the moment, creating a tense, thrilling experience, it’s far from an emotionally affecting one. What the Dead Rising games give the player are choices that effect not only themselves, but also the world around them. And while it’s stressful making a tactical decision like whether to increase the clip size or the damage on your Red 9, it’s far more engaging emotionally choosing who you’ll attempt to save and who you’ll regretfully have to leave behind.

Player choice, the theme that seems now to be recurrent in most of my critiques, is what makes games great. It’s that interactivity, that bond between developer and player, that makes video games truly unique as a medium. The problem, it seems, is that too many games only give their players negligible choices. They may aid in the player’s progression through the story, but they’re ultimately arbitrary. And while still full of arbitrary decisions, the Dead Rising series is, at the very least, introducing some that are not. This is a big step in the right direction to be sure, and it’s mainly for this reason that I applaud the series and its efforts. However, there’s still a considerable amount of content that holds it back from truly being the quintessential zombie experience (www.qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/dead-rising-2.jpg).

You may be asking yourself, “okay, if no game has yet to deliver a realistic zombie experience, not even your precious Dead Rising series, what would it take for a game to actually live up to such a high standard?” My answer to you is this: go back and re-watch that Dead Island trailer. Go read the initial previews for the game, and just imagine what an open world, first-person zombie game with THAT trailer would entail. There’s your perfect zombie game. An immersive, open-world game with the survivalist intensity of Resident Evil mixed with the player agency of Dead Rising (amplified to an even greater extent, of course), all while having the arcady fat gutted out of the experience. No experience points, no bosses, no classes; just you and your fellow survivors, fighting off the horde while either waiting for extraction or searching for a cure. Throw in some of the co-op dynamics of the Left 4 Dead series for good measure, and you’ve got, more or less, one fine, realistic zombie experience that marries the down-to-the-last-bullet tension of classic survival horror with the emotional weight and camaraderie of player-player and player-npc interaction.

At least that’s my two cents. Obviously this idea isn’t fleshed out at all, and there are a litany of unanswered questions one could ask about it, but that’s the general overview of my perfect zombie game. I’m sure there are those out there who will disagree with my vision or have even better ideas than mine (I know many people would like to see a zombie mmo, which I think could also work rather well if handled properly). So how about, if you could design your perfect zombie game, how would you handle it?

I just finished my no-gun-run on Hard in Mirror's Edge, and it got me thinking a bit about the game and why I like it so damn much. I'll be the first to admit that the story was contrived, the combat was awkward and unresponsive, and the running mechanics, while generally fluid, weren't perfect. However, something about that game still resonates with me, and after my third playthrough, I think I've determined what that is.

Mirror's Edge has one of the clearest morality systems I've seen in recent years. Now there's no graph or meter to chart one's progress between Paragon and Renegade, but everyone who's anyone agrees that visual representations of morality are bogus to begin with. Instead, the game's morality system rests solely on the gameplay itself, and the choice(s) it gives the player when confronted with an enemy.

There are three main actions in Mirror's Edge regarding hostile NPC's: run, gun and stun (cwutididthur?). Using a gun is the easiest method of dealing with enemies, followed by either running or hand-to-hand combat (the "stun" option), depending on the situation. In my first playthrough, I did end up using a gun during the final chapter in the server room. If you've played the game, you can sympathize with my decision, I'm sure. But while I was gunning down my foes, I felt a pang of remorse: with enough diligence and retries, I could have let those people live. I could have done otherwise. My no-gun-run helped solidify that feeling of regret, showing my past self that it is, in fact, possible to let them live. I was just too impatient to do it.

There's a recent trend in gaming away from guns and violence that I'm actually an advocate of. If anything, it's a sign of developers and players maturing, taking the medium with them. And needless to say, I'm all for more mature games (though not necessarily in the ESRB sense), but I'd like to be clear on something: immorality isn't found down the barrel of a gun, it's found in the person holding it and their decision to pull the trigger. Games like Call of Duty, which mandate our use of firearms and violence, aren't immoral so much as they are amoral. More often than not, they don't give us the opportunity to say no to the violence; they simply bring us along for the ride. And while there aren't as many options in Mirror's Edge as there are in, say, the Deus Ex series, the player still has a choice in how they deal with adversity. So please, take away some of our guns. We really didn't need this many to begin with. But don't leave us completely unarmed; in order to be moral, we still need the ability to say no.

The following is a short essay I wrote for an aesthetics course this past year in regards to the status of video games as art. It's a fairly standard college essay that borrows an arbitrary definition of "art" presented in class, one which I personally don't agree with, for the sake of the argument. It's a fun, albeit inconclusive, read, complete with its own bibliography. It IS geared towards non-gamers though, so excuse the sometimes explanatory tone. I also have done nothing since handing it in regarding its editing, so there may be a handful of mistakes, but it should still be readable. And with that, enjoy!

Film critic Roger Ebert recently wrote an article for the Chicago Sun Times in which he proclaimed, “Video games can never be art.” Writing in response to a Technology Entertainment Design, or TED, lecture given by game designer and Thatgamecompany cofounder Kellee Santiago, Mr. Ebert addressed most of Ms. Santiago’s talking points, though many found his argument to be unconvincing. It may seem odd that such an articulate a man, one who’s well-versed in artistic criticism, failed to provide an adequate counter-argument to the “video games are art” mantra. However, it becomes clear after reading Mr. Ebert’s article why many people were dissatisfied with his argument: he never provides his definition of what art is. He discusses various aspects of video games and that they negate the medium from ever producing art, but he never explains why. And indeed, without a definition of art, it’s difficult to determine what forms it can or cannot take. To prove that video games can be considered art, or that the medium is at least capable of producing art, I’ll be looking at a definition of art proposed by philosopher Leo Tolstoy, and I’ll demonstrate with examples how video games fit his definition.

Let’s get started by stating Tolstoy’s definition of art, which is perhaps a somewhat lenient definition, but a definition nonetheless. Art, according to Tolstoy, begins with an artist consciously employing external signs to “infect” his audience with an emotion the artist is either currently feeling or has felt in the past. Whether it is art or not is dependent on the spread of this “infection”; if the audience is infected, then these signs are art. Conversely, if there is no infection, there is no art. With this definition, video games can certainly be considered art. I know I have personally been infected with emotion by video games, and not just trivial emotions such as happiness or sadness, but complex ones like loneliness, remorse, and nostalgia. And considering the wealth of blogs, editorials, and articles written by others who speak of similar experiences with games, I think it’s safe to assume that I’m not alone, and that video games do have this potential to infect audiences with emotions.

Am I saying that all video game developers consciously infect their players with emotion through their video games? Of course not. Just as not every photo, movie, song, painting, sculpture, novel, or poem can be considered art, not every game can be either. Whether because of a lack of artistic intent, or because the audience wasn’t infected the intended emotion, there are far more video games that cannot be considered art than there are that can. What is interesting, however, is that even if a particular game cannot be considered art, it still has the potential to be critically acclaimed and celebrated as a “great” game. Why is this? Well, there’s this notion in the video game industry that games should be fun. While this may seem ridiculous when applied to other mediums such as film or music, there is a certain logic to the idea. After all, given the sheer amount of playtime games require of their players (there are quite a few titles which take over 100 hours to complete in their entireties), the want to be entertained during the experience is only natural, and by providing for this want, developers and publishers see higher profits due to increased game sales.

However, Tolstoy makes a clear distinction between works of art and works of entertainment or diversion. He states that if either the sole or the main focus of a work is to incite entertainment or to provide a distraction, then it is not art, but rather counterfeit art. Such a distinction is necessary to prevent even incredibly well-reviewed games like Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 2, which can best be described as a summer action flick personified in a video game, from being called art games. Even though Uncharted 2 has a quintessential “moral of the story,” which one could argue is a possible vessel for emotional transference from the developer to the audience, clearly the focus of the game is to entertain the player. Whatever emotions are conveyed throughout the narrative are never explored in any significant depth; it’s as if they were added as simply formalities or afterthoughts. The real star of the show is still the “wow” factor: explosions, gunplay, fight “scenes,” etc.

There’s a second type of counterfeit art according to Tolstoy: works which have artistic intent but fail to infect their audiences with the intended emotion, whether there is simply no infection whatsoever or there is an infection of the wrong emotion. A perfect example of this is detailed by Anthony Burch, writer for Gearbox Software as well as prolific blogger who addresses issues in the gaming industry. He has a certain love-ambivalence relationship with Ubisoft’s 2008 title Far Cry 2. Taken at face value, Far Cry 2 is a decent game. It’s fun. However, the developers tried to instill the narrative with parallels to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and explore the darker side of human nature. Almost needless to say, they failed; the game ended up feeling more like a less-polished Uncharted 2 than a truly gritty, emotional experience. What Anthony Burch did was focus on a single aspect of the game, in this case it was a buddy system of sorts, and derived an emotional experience from that. He has a few writings and videos in which he delves into his experience more, but for our purposes, I’ll leave the story at his repurposing. Though Anthony Burch would consider Far Cry 2 to be a work of art based on his retooling of the experience, Tolstoy would not. Developer Ubisoft Montreal failed to infect its audience with the intended emotion; therefore, it is not art, but rather counterfeit art.

Up to this point, I’ve done nothing but provide examples of games which cannot be art, at least not according to Tolstoy. So I would like to switch gears and provide an example of a video game which actually can be considered art: Shadow of the Colossus. Developed by Team Ico under the direction of Fumito Ueda, Shadow of the Colossus is regarded as a landmark title in the video games as art debate. Not only was it critically acclaimed, it broke countless barriers and conventions in game design, providing a truly unique and affecting experience for the player. The protagonist, the character the player controls, is a young man named Wander. In an effort to revive a woman named Mono, Wander is tasked with slaying sixteen enormous beings made of earth and stone known as Colossi. It’s a very simple plot, and intentionally so; Ueda intended for the Colossi to be the main focus of the game, and indeed they are. The player’s interaction with the Colossi is perhaps the most artistic aspect of the game in the sense that it’s what probably affects players the most. In the beginning of the game, when the player is tasked with slaying the first Colossus, it’s a straightforward affair. Wander rides his horse across a barren and solemn landscape to the lair of the creature where he finds the hostile Colossus waiting, ready to attack. After Wander delivers the final blow, he collapses to the ground alongside the Colossus, only to be revived at a dilapidated temple where his beloved Mono lies, and where he receives information on the next Colossi he must defeat. This process repeats for the first few Colossi, but when the player confronts the fifth Colossus, a giant bird circling a small lake, something changes.

It begins the same way: the player rides his horse across the barren and solemn landscape to the lair of the creature. However, this time the Colossus is not hostile; it’s peacefully circling a lake, taking no notice of the player, nor showing any signs of ill intent towards him This is the first instance in the game where, in order to progress, the player must initiate the battle. It’s a subtle change, but one that is very effective in arousing a feeling of guilt in the player. To many people, myself included, killing this harmless creature solely for personal gain simply felt immoral, yet we did it anyway. We placed game progress above the “life” of this peaceful Colossus, and we felt a sense of regret for our actions. In interviews both during and after development of the game, Mr. Ueda stressed that this moral conflict is a central theme in the game. How far are players willing to go to see something through to its end? What sacrifices, both physical and moral, are the players willing to make to accomplish the goal set for them by the game? While most people didn’t beat themselves up too hard over the morally objectionable actions they were called upon to perform in the game, there are numerous accounts of players not being able to force themselves to perform these tasks. They couldn’t find any justification in slaying a peaceful Colossus, and so their experiences ended very prematurely. If a game whose goal is to infect players with a feeling of guilt or moral ambiguity actually infects some people so deeply that they feel too guilty to even finish the game, Tolstoy would champion this title as a great work of art, and Fumito Ueda as a masterful artist. There is a good reasons why people cite Shadow of the Colossus as an example of a video game being art: because it is art.

Just as a painter can consciously infect his audience with a particular emotion through his paintings, so too can game developers through their games. In this respect, given Tolstoy’s definition, it’s clear that video games can be art, despite Roger Ebert’s opinion on the matter. What isn’t clear is which art games Tolstoy would consider to be either good or bad. In his writings, Tolstoy states that the more people a work can infect, the better the work. This leaves video games at a severe disadvantage. There are simply not as many people who play games as there are who see movies, or read novels, or visit art museums. Not only that, games are an interactive medium; they require audience participation, and they expect the audience to either have or develop certain skills to experience works in their entireties. Some people simply do not have, nor can they develop these skills, and often they end up walking away frustrated from video games. Even Shadow of the Colossus requires a good deal of skill to complete, preventing those who are bad at video games from experiencing the work as a whole. Admittedly, as a medium, video games are hardly audience-friendly, and Tolstoy would certainly criticize them for that. But consider a tweaked version of Tolstoy’s position: rather than using the sheer number of people infected as the measure of quality, use the depth of the infection. How deeply is the audience infected by the work? How long do the emotions and the ideas presented by the artist stay with the audience? By using depth instead of population size as the scale for determining quality, video games are no longer disadvantaged in comparison to other mediums. Whether or not revising this aspect of Tolstoy’s argument in order to defend my position is couth, it bears little on the final verdict of the question I initially posed: are video games art? The answer is still yes.